Gokarna

9:30 PM on the last friday of may. It was pouring. Now rains in Bangalore are very punctual, mostly unwanted and extremely unique. The prickly heat powders, cold drinks and ice creams would have just hit the markets as it starts to pour cats and dogs in Bangalore. The rains also seem to mock the companies in E-City. Everyday, rains trace a sinusoidal wave pattern
between 5 and 9 30 in the evening. It starts to drizzle at around 5 in the evening when the first bus from Infy leaves the campus...and it rises like a crescendo into a downpour by around 8 and its back to perfect Bangalore weather by 9 30 when the last bus leaves; meanwhile, space-time freezes on the Hosur road. Deve Gowda isnt alone...Rain God too hates Infy!!

Back to the last friday of May..

16 of us had plans to go to Gokarna over the weekend. Everything was going as expected - lots of people dropped plans at the end, we deliberated and discussed a lot, planned a lot of unnecessary things and missed out crucuial ones...and overall, managed to generate a lot of hype (U bet we are all true Infoscions!!). Yeah, and as expected, Rain God didnt like our plans; it poured cats, dogs and buffaloes. Rain God wasnt alone in conspiring against our trip. He had company in some Rehman of BTM travels who had concrete plans to cheat us. We danced, laughed and joked before getting into the bus only to realise that it was one of the oldest buses in Karnataka and that travelling a day in it would seriously alter our mental and physical health.

I had booked the bus and was agitated - damn..trip tho shuroo hote hi khatam ho gaya!! :-)...accompanied by two rookie body builders in Pasha and Saurav, I tried to barge into the newly furnished office of BTM Travels...I guess I kept trying for a few unnecessary milli seconds while the huge glass door (I am convinced it was Saint Gobain) made yet another dent(Tembu) on
my already eroded forehead (I have always feared basket ball courts and glass doors). As with the trip, our fight seemed to end even before it started! Team of three reduced to one; Saurav took me to a lady doctor, who seemed both nice and intelligent until I saw a bandage the size of a curtain - may be she had a monthly dressing target to reach.

I was sure I would have atleast 3 stitches; I ended up having none. For someone who had nearly 75 stitches and 5 bone fractures, it was a gross mistake to exaggerate the criticality of an injury (A few years earlier, I would have even predicted when I would have the next round of stitches :-) ). May be, the blood and the loud sound cheated me; but Rehman
definitely did.

Pasha wasnt amused. He quickly donned the role of an angry young man fighting for the rights of his hungry and tired fellow men. In the process, he had to land a nice blow on somebody (After all an angry young man is nothing without a few blows)..Meanwhile, I managed to find a nice comfy place for me..away from the war zone (I was still pondering over how I
missed stitches).

11:00 PM. We had a decision to make. Against all expectations, there was a consensus - we decided to go. I knew I was done with my qouta of injuries and I would be safe for the next 2-3 months....and when even I am safe..the worst is over. Yeah the worst was surely over..the despondent mood for the last 3 hours quickly gave way to bakar-our core competency. We had
some girls in the group and as per the protocol, we started playing antakshari..and I am sure you would guess this too.. we then followed it with Dumb sharades. I am not good at Antakshari..but was cheered for every song that I sang...the big bandage surely had an impact!

We went..we went and we went..and finally saw that the kilometer readings on the road were also cheating us. We just crossed around 200kms after travelling for 7 hours!! It was morning light and the potential of the driver of our "engineering marvel" bus was hard to ignore. Buses..cars..lorries dashed past the windows as if every other vehicle was on a mission
which our driver wasnt able to comprehend. Cyclists requested and got the right of way; our driver will be remembered in those villages that we went through for firing up the imagination of cyclists..for igniting their minds with thoughts no other cyclist in the world would have dared to think.

We reached Gokarna at 4PM...thanks to our formula zero driver and the google map empowered Sarkar. If we had been a bit more gullible, Sarkar would have made us believe that Gokarna is a hill station near Patna. When you sit in a bus for 16 hours seeing every living thing around you get past you nonchalantly, the first thing you would do when you get down is run..we did a shade better..we decided to treck immediately.

Trecking with 5 digital cameras is very difficult...10 steps and 2 photos is the general rule for normal people. But if you have promising ramp-walkers around, it becomes 2 steps and 10 photos. We somehow managed with very few stops to reach the Paradise beach..uhhh...and what a beach it was!! The sea seemed rough and the waves dangerous..but the view was breathtaking...we spent a few minutes savoring the beauty when we realised that we had company on the beach; A lone sadhu type man was looking at us.

The man seemed straight out of Hindu mythological stories..he was seated in a medidating position on a pedestal facing the sea and he looked to be doing that as long as the beach existed. Semi nude, long and curly hair..he looked like the protector of the landscape around him. He was not threatening though; but what he said was certainly threatening - No food, no water and no shelter in the beach for the night...it was dark and about to rain very heavily.

Who was this man? Did we decide to stay back there or did we walk through the jungles in the night? Keep watching this space to find out :-)